Developed by Carrie Harris, the Hotel Aberdeen is a corner-lot brick building that captures the stories of working-class Spokanites who came to Spokane at the turn of the 20th century to work in growing regional industries such as mining, lumber,…

The population of the Upper Columbia Country exploded when gold was discovered along the banks of the Columbia River and its tributaries in the early 1850s. The first gold boom, the Colville Gold Strike, drew prospective miners from all over the…

The United States-Canadian border in the Pacific Northwest is clearly marked and border agents at defined crossing points regulate movement from one side to the other. This system is the direct result of the hard work done by the United States and…

Missionaries conducted their final service at St. Paul’s Mission on August 14, 1875. Without the stewardship of the clergymen and parishioners the building quickly fell into disrepair. But although the church was no longer in use, locals continued…

In 1915 tuberculosis struck the Spokane Indians hard. Four natives died and fifty more were suspected of having the disease. In response to the outbreak, the Indian Service used the site of the former boarding school to create a sanitarium for local…

What happened to the houses, stores, and buildings that were threatened by the rising water of Lake Roosevelt in 1941? Some were torn down and their materials reused. Some were burned. Others, if in good condition, were actually picked up and moved.…

Spokanites love their restaurants, but only a few restaurants invoke nostalgia like Cyrus O’Leary, which closed in 2011. The unusual architecture of the building in combination with the “collectible gewgaws galore” made the environment…

Theaters were staples of entertainment for Americans from the mid-1800s to the beginning of the 20th century. Theaters in these decades featured live entertainment including plays and vaudeville. Even small towns had their theaters (often…

The Great Depression plunged the United States into an economic downturn unlike any it had seen before. Spokane was not immune. Workers lost their jobs quickly and the local unemployment rate shot up to twenty-five percent. Even though the local…

Tucked away in a corner of this odd-shaped parking lot, behind the historic Frank's Diner, is a sliver of Spokane history. Actually, a large granite block of history. At the west end of the parking lot is a retaining wall made of mismatched…